Lawmakers approving state budget ahead of adjournment

SPRINGFIELD – Lawmakers today have begun to send portions of a new state budget to Gov. Pat Quinn, the one task they must complete ahead of their Saturday adjournment deadline.

The spending plan puts off the tough decision of whether to extend the 2011 income tax increase that’s scheduled to expire starting in January, instead relying on borrowing and delaying payments in order to keep state government operating.

The Senate is spending the afternoon debating the budget bills, which passed the House earlier this week. Also on tap for final approval in the Senate is a $1.1 billion road construction program, as well as an overhaul of the state’s special tax incentive program for businesses that passed the House today.

It’s unclear if House lawmakers will vote on a measure that would overhaul the Cook County pension system because of resistance from Republican lawmakers who say it doesn’t do enough to rein in benefits. Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Senate President John Cullerton said his chamber would not act on a measure backed by House Speaker Michael Madigan that would strip control of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum from Gov. Pat Quinn and make it a free-standing agency.

However, the fate of legislation can change quickly in Springfield as the final hours of the spring session provide plenty of opportunities for proposals to see sudden resurrection.

The $35.7 billion budget is roughly $300 million more than this year’s budget and represents a compromise after legislators indicated there wasn’t enough support to extend the income tax increase, which went from 3 percent to 5 percent in January 2011 and stands to drop back to 3.75 percent early next year. If that happens, state coffers would take a $2 billion hit in the next budget and $4 billion in the one after that.

The budget avoids deep cuts that were threatened, but relies on what critics have dismissed as accounting tricks to make ends meet.

About $650 million that had been going to pay down a stack of billions of dollars in overdue bills in recent years instead will go to balance the books. Another $650 million would be borrowed from hundreds of funds that are set aside for specific special purposes. Still another $380 million would come from delaying payments for state employee group health insurance.

While lawmakers have until midnight on Saturday to wrap up their work, they are poised to work late into the night on Friday in order to finish a little early.